Category Archives: Announcements

Announcements, Geary

Would you like to see Geary 0.4 available on Ubuntu 12.04 / elementary Luna?

7 Comments

geary-yorbaWe’ve received a lot of complaints from users that Geary 0.4 isn’t available for Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) and elementary Luna.  It wasn’t an arbitrary decision on our part.  As we developed Geary 0.4, we learned that more and more components that Geary relied on were changing or simply unavailable in 12.04/Luna.  There’s a tangible engineering cost to maintaining backward compatibility.  At some point this summer we realized it was too much work to maintain support for 12.04/Luna as well as newer versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, and all the other distros out there.

But Ubuntu 12.04 and elementary Luna (which is based off of 12.04) has a steady fan base who would really like to run Geary 0.4.  What to do?

We have limited resources, but we don’t want to leave users out in the cold.  We believe this is a problem both Yorba and the community can solve.  So we’ve created a bounty for the problem — if someone out there (or a group of people) solves this problem for us (and therefore everyone else!), they’re rewarded with cold, hard cash.  It’s that simple.

If you’re interested, read on:

There’s two pages you should read: the issue ticket at Yorba’s project server (which details the problem and the stipulations for collecting the bounty) as well as the bounty page at Bountysource.com (where the promised funds are listed).

If you want to see Geary 0.4 work on 12.04/Luna, you can help.  Go to the bounty page at Bountysource.com and pledge what you can.  The more the community offers, the more motivation developers have to take on this challenge.  It’s not easy what we’re asking for — whomever takes this on deserves a reward for their time, energy, and expertise.  What’s more, if no one solves this problem, you get your money back (minus Bountysource.com’s fee).

If you have the right stuff to backport Geary 0.4 to 12.04/Luna, dive right in.  Make sure you read the issue ticket first for all the stipulations.  This isn’t a simple matter of getting Geary to compile on 12.04.  You have to make sure anyone running 12.04 can install it via their package manager.  Yorba’s developers are willing to guide you along, offer advice, point out resources or commits that you might be interested in.  But you need to make it happen.

Just to show that we’re serious about this, Yorba has already pledged $500 toward this bounty.  We’re hoping the community will toss in more money to further sweeten the pot.  If everyone who has asked us to backport Geary 0.4 to 12.04/Luna offered $10, $25, or $50 toward the job, there would be no problem finding someone to do the work.

(Note: Yorba employees are prohibited from collecting any bounty money for Yorba-related projects.)

Announcements, Shotwell

Shotwell 0.15 has arrived

14 Comments

We at Yorba are pleased to bring you Shotwell 0.15. This version has several enhancements:

  • Copy and paste color adjustments between photos
  • Highlights detail adjustment
  • YouTube plugin now uses OAuth / OpenID
  • Videos in Missing Files now re-import properly
  • Improvements when thumbnailing videos
  • Numerous bug fixes

The Shotwell 0.15 tarball is available for download. See the installation guide for information on getting Shotwell on your system. Report bugs and feature requests at Yorba’s Redmine server. (You must create an account before adding or modifying tickets there.)

Ubuntu users can also find a version for Raring Ringtail (13.04) and Quantal Quetzal (12.10) on Yorba’s PPA. Adventurous users may also wish to subscribe to Yorba’s Daily PPA.

Announcements, Geary

Geary 0.4 is here!

24 Comments

Geary 0.4 screenshot

Yorba is proud to announce the release of Geary 0.4, the newest version of our lightweight email client. This release includes many enhancements:

  • Per-account full text search
  • Automatic save to draft
  • Refreshed user interface
  • Per-folder unread email count
  • Experimental support for Outlook.com
  • Enhanced “show external images” preference
  • Find bar for locating text within a conversation (Ctrl+F)
  • Improved handling of attachments
  • Malicious link checker
  • Passwords stored with libsecret instead of GNOME Keyring
  • Hundreds of bugs fixed and small improvements

The Geary 0.4 tarball is available for download. See Yorba’s wiki for information on building, running, and contributing to Geary. Report bugs and feature requests at Yorba’s Redmine server. (You must create an account before adding or modifying tickets there.)

Ubuntu users can also find a version for Raring Ringtail (13.04) and Quantal Quetzal (12.10) on Yorba’s PPA. Adventurous users may also wish to subscribe to Yorba’s Daily PPA.

Announcements, Geary, Yorba

Geary crowdfunding: What’s next?

47 Comments

geary-yorbaThirty days comes and goes faster than you think.  The Geary crowdfunding campaign’s 30 days are up, and unfortunately, we didn’t make our target amount.  That means Yorba will take in none of the $50,860 pledged by 1,192 generous donors over the past month, who will receive refunds.

I’d like to thank each person who pledged to the Geary campaign.  That money represented more than dollars and pennies, it represented trust in Yorba and the work we’re doing to bring high-quality software to the Free Desktop.  $50,860 is not small potatoes, and 1,192 donors in 30 days tells me we’re doing something right.  Even if we “failed” I like to believe we succeeded in some sense.

What’s next?  In some ways, it’s back to business for Yorba.  We’re still coding.  In fact, we released new versions of Geary and Shotwell (even Valencia!) during the crowdfunding campaign, which has to be some kind of record.  We’re working now to find other sources of income to cover our costs.  All options are being considered.

That said, please consider giving directly to Yorba.  If you pledged and are going to receive a Paypal refund, you can still donate some or all of that money to Yorba knowing it will be put to good use.  Every dollar we take in is a little more oxygen for Yorba to continue developing free software.  Just follow this link to donate:

http://www.yorba.org/about/donate/

Thanks everyone!

Announcements, Geary

Geary crowdfunding: CiviCRM comes through

Leave a comment

I’m pleased to pass on that CiviCRM and one of its funders have collectively pledged $10,000 to the Geary crowdfunding campaign!  This is a huge shot in the arm to the campaign, pushing us over the $40K mark.  As they told me, they “know and understand what Yorba & Geary needs and are supporting it with what counts.”

This is a fantastic show of support for Yorba and its vision.  We have five days to go.  Our goal of $100,000 may seem far-off but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.  Please share the campaign with everyone you know, and if you’ve not donated, please donate now!

Announcements, Geary

Geary crowdfunding: A perspective from Bytemark

11 Comments

Earlier today Bytemark’s Managing Director Matthew Bloch posted an incredibly encouraging blog post on why his company supports Geary and wants it to succeed.  Some key points that are well worth considering:

Facebook and Twitter continue to use their muscle to wind internet messaging back to the 1980s. That was a time when sending a message between big commercial networks was a privilege and not a right. So you had multiple addresses, or people you had to pay to talk to, or people you just couldn’t talk to because those big networks wanted to lock people in. We’re getting back to that state again now.

…

All of this bad news means hosting companies lose business. Users see a better experience with one of the big guys, moving towards them and their proprietary platforms. Among many other things, we all need to see a better free email client, and the prospect of anyone starting afresh seemed pretty remote.

…

Yorba simply want to put beautiful, functional, software out there, for free, with no strings attached, and with no plans to lock away the best features for paying customers.

Here’s a video of Matthew Bloch and scene-stealer Blue personally making their case for everyone to support Geary:

We’re reaching the last week of the Geary crowdfunding campaign.  Have you given yet?  If not, please consider donating.  We’re running an all-or-nothing campaign, meaning we must reach our goal of $100,000 to receive the money.  Please give today!